An immense amount of goods is in the process of being shipped each day. In this regard, the goods may be in the process of being loaded onto a vehicle, into a container or the like for shipment. The goods may be onboard a delivery vehicle, such as an aircraft, cargo ship or the like, for transport to or at least toward the intended destination or, the goods may be at or proximate the intended destination and waiting to be or in the process of being unloaded, unpacked or the like.
It is useful for many reasons to be able to accurately track cargo during its shipment. By tracking the cargo, accountability and a chain of custody for the cargo can be maintained. Additionally, by having an understanding of the cargo that is in shipment to an intended destination, the intended destination is better able to manage its inventory in order to have the necessary products on hand when needed, but to avoid having unnecessarily large supplies of products prior to their use. Additionally, by understanding the status of goods that are in shipment to an intended destination, the propensity to re-order goods that have been previously been ordered, but have not yet arrived at the intended destination can be reduced. As a result, accurately tracking the shipment of goods can increase the efficiency with which inventory can be managed and correspondingly decrease the costs associated with inventory management.
The capability to accurately track the shipment of goods is particularly important and also particularly challenging in a military context. As will be understood, military engagements can require goods to be shipped to various locations around the world including a number of intended destinations that are relatively remote. Additionally, conventional shipping operations are further complicated by the manner in which at least some military engagements are being conducted and the manner in which it is anticipated that even more military engagements will be conducted in the future in terms of the transformation to an ad-hoc light structure in which the military is less reliant on the existing infrastructure and is, instead, adapted to move quickly from location to location as the military theater evolves. In this scenario, the process of providing supplies to the military and, in particular, the process of shipping the supplies over the last leg of the journey to military forces in the field becomes even more challenging with increasingly greater reliance likely to be made upon rapid, vertical lift re-supply techniques, i.e., the use of helicopters or the like, for delivering supplies to the military personnel since the existing infrastructure may not permit the delivery of supplies to the military personnel in the field, at least not in a safe manner.
By way of example, the Government Accounting Office has determined that the Department of Defense has a supply system that delivers supplies valued at about a 150 billion dollars per year. Within this supply system, at all times, supplies valued at about 86 billion dollars are in the supply chain pipeline, i.e., are in the process of being shipped from their source to the intended destination and/or are disposed in inventory at some intermediate location. Of the assets in the supply chain pipeline, the Government Account Office has estimated that the Department of Defense has no visibility for supplies valued at about 27 billion dollars. In addition to difficulties in tracking supplies, inventory management also poses an issue, at least partially due to the lack of visibility within the supply chain. In this regard, the Government Accounting Office estimates that an average of 65% of on-hand inventory, i.e., inventory valued a about 18.7 billion dollars, was not needed to support required inventory levels. As evidenced by the information provided by the Government Accounting Office, the difficulties with the supply chain including the lack of visibility thereof cause military personnel to find themselves with too much of one type of asset, but not enough of another type of asset. Additionally, the military may be tempted to repeatedly order the same asset since there is significant difficulty or limitation in the ability to determine where or if a previously ordered asset is within the supply chain. These repeated orders significantly decrease the efficiency of the supply system and increase the burden on the transportation system that supports the supply chain.
In a tactical and, in particular, in the modern tactical theatre in which the military personnel in the field are less reliant upon the existing infrastructure and are deployed in a more ad-hoc fashion, it is becoming increasingly more common for supplies that are in the last stage of the supply system, i.e., the leg of the supply chain that delivers these supplies to the military personnel in the field, to need to be redirected since the military personnel have moved or the plans for the military personnel have changed since the time of the order. In these situations, it has been difficult to redirect the supplies since the lack of transparency within the supply chain made it difficult to determine where the supplies currently were and it was oftentimes similarly difficult to determine who in the supply chain was currently responsible for the supplies.
As such, it would be desirable to provide for an improved supply system, both in the commercial context and the military context. In particular, it would be desirable to provide for a supply system that was more visible such that the status of supplies that had been previously ordered could be readily determined. Additionally, it would be desirable to provide for an improved supply system that would be capable of supporting more ad-hoc military operations that are less reliant on existing infrastructure, while also permitting the redirection of supplies in instances in which the military personnel has or is changing locations.